Metro Atlanta’s Diversity Complicates Census Count
By Khalil Abdullah
Ethnic Media Services
Clarkston,
GA – Inside the Clarkston Community Center, a 20-minute drive from downtown
Atlanta, Mayor Ted Terry talked about canvassing for votes in that neighborhood
five years ago. A woman from Bhutan, South Asia, he told his audience, had
invited him into her apartment for a cup of sweet tea and cookies, apparently to
practice the little English she knew. It was small talk. Her mother, draped in
a sari, joined them. She spoke no English, but nodded politely.
Some pundits
deemed Terry’s European ancestry a handicap in his eventual mayoral victory. His
claim that Clarkston, a small city of about 13,000, is “the most ethnically diverse
square mile in America,” is no idle boast. According to census data, more than
50 languages are spoken there, likely because of the city’s willingness to
serve as a refugee resettlement community since the 1990s.
Terry recalled
his good fortune the day he canvassed, not so much for the cookies and tea that
sated his sweet tooth, but for his host’s 15-year-old son, who returned during
the visit.
“He was
dressed like Justin Bieber — tight jeans, baseball cap,” Terry said. More important,
his English was excellent, he was able to convey the issues at stake to his
mother and grandmother — in their language — and he linked his high school
friends to Terry’s Facebook page.
The import
of encountering a multigenerational immigrant or refugee family with a member
fluent in English — and at ease with technology — wasn’t lost on Terry’s
audience, who had been co-convened by the Leadership Conference Education Fund
and Ethnic Media Services.
This meeting’s
objective, said EMS Executive Director Sandy Close, was “to forge a sense of
excitement and common purpose among the influencers, media, elected officials
and, above all, the frontline organizers crucial to getting as complete a count
as possible for the 2020 census.”
Fair Count,
an organization taking dead aim at increasing census participation in Georgia,
was recently launched by Stacey Abrams, who narrowly lost her bid in the
state’s gubernatorial race. Her sister, Fair Count Program Director Dr. Jeanine
Abrams McLean, said that 86 of Georgia’s 159 counties have been designated as hard-to-count
census tracts. Also, McLean reported, roughly 30% of the state’s population
didn’t participate in the last census, and in some Georgia areas “20% of the population
has no or limited access to the Internet.”
The latter
is of serious concern: Census 2020 will be the first to introduce Internet
response as a critical method of enumeration in a state that has seen a
significant population increase.
Erik Woodworth,
a senior planner with the Atlanta Regional Commission, told attendees that
Atlanta, trailing only Dallas, Houston and New York, is fourth among the top 10
U.S. metro areas experiencing the
largest population gain since the 2010 census. “We’ve added almost 600,000
people to the Atlanta metro region,” he said.
Clarkston’s
DeKalb County sits east of and adjacent to Atlanta’s Fulton County. Combining
DeKalb’s demographics with neighboring Gwinnett shows a pronounced presence of
foreign-born residents and a decrease in those whose primary language is
English. As reported by the Census Bureau, “by 2016, more than two-thirds of
the foreign-born resided in the South or West.” That geographic shift, reflected
in the DeKalb County region, portends a possible repeat of Georgia’s census
undercount in 2010.
Even with
the Census Bureau’s multiple language-assistance initiatives, the concept of
the census is unfamiliar to some communities and its benefits seem far removed.
For others, concerns about privacy issues might impede census responses,
particularly in households where immigration status may be in flux among
occupants.
“Why
should I participate in the census, as a foreigner, as an immigrant, or as a
refugee?” That’s the feedback Doris Mukangu from the Amani Women Center in
Clarkson said she expects to encounter among the primarily African refugee population
her organization serves. Restricted Internet access and lack of computer skills,
added Mukangu, are hurdles to achieving high response rates. Another is illiteracy:
“You give me the form and I can’t read it.”
To these
and other challenges, Kevin Sinha, of CivicGeorgia, insisted that organizations
work together to “fill in the gaps” for better coverage and to be persistent
about going back to neighborhoods and communities that may have avoided or declined
discussions about the census.
“Go back
again,” Sinha said, urging attendees not take an initial reluctance to discuss
census issues as final.
The two elected
state officials at the meeting, Rep. Carolyn Hugley and Rep. Brenda Lopez, cited
the high stakes for their constituents’ future. Hugley, a 27-year veteran of
the legislature, also serves as board chair for Fair Count. She said she learned
from her mother, a school teacher, that it’s important to tell people what they
need to remember.
“There are
three R’s and two U’s,” Hugley said of the census: research, resources,
representation, underfunded and underrepresented. Research yields the census
data essential for planning school expansions, roads, and other infrastructure efforts.
Resources that support various federal programs, like Section 8 housing or
supplemental food programs, are derived from census data. Representation that
enables constituencies to elect officials who reflect their aims and
aspirations relies on census data for accuracy and fairness. In order to reap
benefits, Hugley stressed, “you have to be counted. If you are undercounted, you
will be underfunded and underrepresented.”
Lopez concurred,
and emphasized how participating in the census affects federal funding for
school systems and social services — things that touch people’s daily lives and
particularly their children’s quality of life.
Indeed,
data show that, up to the age of four, Hispanic children lead the undercount at
8%. That rate is higher than even the historically undercounted African
American child population, at 6%. White children have the lowest undercount at 3%.
Children invisible to the census may not bring dollars to their communities, but
they still have needs that cost money, or, as Hugley observed, “services still
have to be provided.”
The enthusiasm
generated by the event was palpable, despite the session concluding with a
discussion of whether a question on citizenship status will be included on the
census form. On a request from the Trump administration for an expedited
decision, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on this issue in April. A ruling
is expected in time for census forms to be printed July 1.
Whether
the question is included or not, Rep. Lopez said the complete count work needs
to continue. She encouraged the media to be fully engaged with what Sonum
Nerurkar, Get Out the Count manager for the Leadership Conference Education
Fund, calls “one of the most pressing civil rights issues in our country.”
“If we don’t get the census right,” Nerurkar
said, “we will see these impacts over the next 10 years. … We want to make sure
our communities are seen and heard.”
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Mayor Ted Terry Rep. Carolyn HugleyBottom of Form
